varia

It has been a hectic week: for quite some time now, I've been on the verge of finishing a draft of the third chapter of my M.A. thesis. Well, it's close now; I can taste it. I expect to defend by the summer.

I have to say that I've been enjoying this last stretch of research immensely. It has taken awhile, but I think that I have gotten my head around the role of miracle in the early hagiographies (for which, see Clare Stancliffe's St. Martin and his hagiographer [Oxford, 1983]).

Other recent reading includes:

God's Plagiarist by R. Howard Bloch (University of Chicago Press, 1994). It deals with the Abbe J.-P. Migne, who is best known in the world of patristics as the man who edited the Patrologia Latina and the Patrologia Graeca, a huge collection of approx. 500 volumes presenting original texts of virtually every late antique and mediaeval theologian, ecclesiastical historian, et al.

We got tickets!

We got tickets! My wife and I are going to see U2 in Atlanta in November!

Restating the obvious...

Click on the link above for some thoughts on congregational autonomy. Jason doesn't say anything particularly earth-shattering, but how often we forget these truths!

New Books!

Always a time of great excitement. Let's see, there's:

Worship in the Early Church (Eerdmans, 1974). This is an older text, but still useful -- chapters on prayer, hymnody, preaching, baptism and the Eucharist, among others.

and

Colossians Remixed (IVP, 2004). I hope to begin reading this soon -- thoughts forthcoming then.

And for the kiddies...

Learning Latin through Mythology (Cambridge UP, 1991). This seems like pretty good supplemental material for Latin I students -- at least that's what I'm banking on.

thoughts on worship

Just got in from a long day -- two worship services and an afternoon of fairly successful thesis writing.

It's nothing new, but it struck me squarely in the face today: our worship (i.e. the worship of the congregation with which I assemble) is crippled by ritualism. For the millionth time, the "president" of the Lord's Table (to borrow a now-archaic term) read the standard biblical passages regarding the Eucharist (Acts 20.7, 1 Corinthians 11.23ff.).

What is wrong with these passages? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But something is definitely wrong when they -- read without comment -- are the only way, week in and week out, that the minds and hearts of the congregation are prepared for the Supper.

It seems that these passages are read because they give us a law, a ritual, that we have to observe in order to be pleasing to God. There is no intimation, ever, that there might be any deeper level of significance to the bread and the wine. What is significant, in the minds of those who officiate week in and week out is the performance of the act -- that we have done it on the first day of the week, every first day of the week.

There are so many important theological themes that the Supper addresses -- suffering, sacrifice, community, fellowship, unity, anticipation of heaven, et al. But these are themes that are ignored in favor of emphasizing merely that we do it.

We've made an idol out of the performance of the act itself. Can this sort of self-centered worship be truly acceptable to God?

Life on the Vine

More thoughts from Philip Kenneson's Life on the Vine:

Our gathered worship might also remind us that not all relationships must be rooted in self-interested exchanges. We do not offer our praise and thanksgiving to God because God needs it. God is ceaselessly and eternally praised by innumerable hosts whom we simply join when we lift our voices in praise and adoration. This is not to suggest, of course, that God does not take pleasure in our worship. I suspect, however, that the pleasure that God takes in our worship is inseparable from its being offered freely, from its character as a gift. We do not gather to praise God with an eye toward what we will receive in return, or in order to keep God pacified for another week.

Nor, for that matter, do we ultimately gather merely because "we are supposed to" or in order to make sure that we have checked off each of our five acts of worship for the week. Too often, local congregations have become so concerned with the actual performance of the acts that the significance of the acts (esp. the Lord's Supper) gets lost.

So, what is worship about? Kenneson provides more clues:

We gather first of all out of gratitude, as a response to God's prior activity. We gather to give God praise for creating and sustaining the entire cosmos and for creating us in the divine image in order that we might have communion with God and with one another. We gather in order to give God praise for creating a covenant people, Israel, who would be a light to the nations and through whom all nations would be blessed. We gather to give God praise for sending the Son in the person of Jesus Christ, in order that we might be reconciled to God and the rest of the cosmos. We gather to give God praise for pouring out the Spirit upon the church that we might be the body of Christ for the world.
There are, of course, many more reasons why we might gather to praise God. I hope, however, that the point is clear: in gathering to praise God as God deserves to be praised, we attempt to set aside our self-interestedness and focus our attention on the One who creates and sustains all life. (italics mine, CRC)

What sort of self-interestedness might we bring with us to worship? One that is often overlooked is the idol of precision and of the five acts. When the mere performance of the acts becomes our primary focus, focus on God and his mighty acts can (and often does) become secondary.

The Beirut Wall Isn't Falling

The article linked above examines some of the premature assertions -- in this case, comparisons to 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall -- made in the media, foreign policy circles and other places about the political situation in Lebanon.

I am all for the expansion of freedom in Lebanon and the expulsion of an occupying force, but it is important that the Lebanese uprising be understood in its immediate context rather than in the context of the at-home political fortunes of the Bush Administration.

more on lebanon

Well, it's a bit late, but here's a gem from the President from last week. He references a meeting between Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and the French foreign minister and says that he applauds the meeting:

"where both of them stood up and said loud and clear to Syria, you get your troops and your secret services out of Lebanon so that that good democracy has a chance to flourish."

Pot?
Meet Kettle.

(audio of quotation can be found at NPR).

a real trend?

As a follow-up to Daniel Schorr's comments about Lebanon, go here for more thoughts on what the latest wave of democratic movement (in Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia) means for the Bush administration.

Life on the Vine

I've just begun reading Philip Kenneson's Life on the Vine. Here's a worthy observation from the introductory chapter, titled "Dying on the Vine?"

Theological reflection that is of service to the church must be bilingual, speaking of both theological truths and cultural realities. To be able to speak only one language is to rob the church of the perspective it needs in order to sustain a faithful witness to the world. The church must always be prepared to make critical discernments about itself and about the wider culture in which it participates. Such discernments, when exercised under the guidance of the Spirit, help to prune the unproductive growth from our lives. Without good pruning, trees or vines use all of their available resources simply to sustain their expanding network of branches. For this reason, the farther the branches grow from the main trunk or vine, the less likely they are to bear good fruit. Furthermore, as Jesus remarks in the Gospel, even the branch that is already bearing fruit remains a candidate for pruning, since such activity may spur the production of even more and better fruit.

Kenneson's use of the metaphor of language is powerful. Conservative (i.e. non-institutional) churches of Christ often miss this very important point. We have been quite strong in speaking the language of pure doctrine about the work of the church, MDR, etc., but we have failed (sometimes spectacularly so) to learn the language of the culture that we live in, i.e. in making our message comprehensible to anyone other than ourselves. For all of the recent zeal among our brethren to explore new media of communication, such as the Internet (and this is a good thing), we have neglected to frame our message in ways that are understandable to those who may encounter it.
Our engagement with the culture in which we are embedded has been ambivalent at best. Those who do most of our thinking along these lines (e.g. the writers for Truth Magazine) have virtually refused to address the intellectual currents of our day (e.g. postmodernism, biblical scholarship) in any serious way other than to dismiss them out of hand. This only serves to spread irrational fear among members in local assemblies and to stifle discussion within our own ranks. This has to change, if we are to survive.

a crown of thorns

While we're on the subject of Civil War history, here's a snippet from a Catholic blogger, speaking of Jefferson Davis' imprisonment in Massachusetts awaiting trial:

While sitting in prison awaiting a trial for treason (a trial which would never come), Jefferson Davis, former President of the Confederate States of America and not a Catholic, received a gift of consolation from His Holiness Pope Pius IX. The gift was a crown of thorns (with thorns measuring two inches long) woven by the pope himself and an portrait of the Vicar of Christ, autographed with the words from Holy Scripture, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." The crown of thorns and the portrait are both on display at the Confederate Museum in New Orleans, LA.

I had heard this story before, but was only recently able to trace the provenance of it. Enjoy!

4 March 1861

4 March 1861 marks the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's accession to the presidency of a truncated United States. His first inaugural contains this gem regarding the "domestic institutions" of the South:

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that--

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause--as cheerfully to one section as to another.

(italics mine, CRC) I suppose the point to remembering this less-than-honorable moment in the life of our only sainted president is that historical reality is often messier and much more tentative than the rosy glow of later histories let on.

Lebanon and Iraq

[First off, for links to the latest on the assassination of the Lebanese prime minister and today's promise (?) from Syria that they would withdraw troops, go here and here.]

Anyway, I was on my commute home this evening listening to NPR. They were carrying Daniel Schorr's commentary on the situation in Lebanon (which Condoleeza Rice has somewhat fatuously dubbed the "Cedar Revolution"). Schorr is usually a reliable source for some of the most delicious anti-administration commentary around. But not today.

In addressing the peaceful demonstrations in Beirut, he tied them to the 30 January Iraqi elections. He reminded his listeners of how, in the months prior to the invasion of Iraq, the President had spoke of bringing democracy to Iraq and thereby transforming it into a beacon of freedom in the Middle East. Noting that the Iraqi elections were "successful," he went on to say that, perhaps, President Bush had been correct.

There is a problem with this, as I see it. Consider the circumstances: Iraq has had democracy brought to it at gunpoint. For the past two years, the U.S. military has occupied Iraq, unleashing an ever-expanding native and foreign resistance that has crippled its economic and political stability and created an environment of fear which most Iraqis live with day in and day out. The election was a belated carrot, supported chiefly in regions of the country that had the most to gain by it. That's not to say that it wasn't a step in the right direction; it seems to me, however, that the election has done little to salve religious and ethnic tension and can hardly serve as a beacon under the circumstances.

In Lebanon, on the other hand, what seems to be occurring is a peaceful grassroots revolt against foreign domination that takes its cues from the recent peaceful uprisings in Georgia and the Ukraine. In the face of a violent act, the Lebanese people have named the evil among them and, through non-violent action, are expelling it from their midst. They have, so far, rejected the cycle of violence and retaliation that has engulfed the U.S. presence in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So, no, I'm not quite sure that the moves toward democracy in Iraq and in Lebanon are parallel or necessarily have anything to do with one another.